Episode 1: North American Literature and the Human Condition

00:00:00 - Hello everyone and welcome to our educational podcast, Islana. Today we are going to cover different aspects about leadership, exactly about North American leadership and the human condition. Our hosts are Laura Velasquez, Isabel Manrique and Anna Ferreiro. In order to start these amazing podcasts, we have to have in mind some important questions. The first one, why is leadership important? And the second, how does it influence any identity? So let's to start it. Thank you, Laura. Thank you for that great introduction. Okay, so as you say, why is literature important? Literature is important because it allows a person to step back in time and learn about life on earth from the ones who walked on it before us. We can gather a better understanding of culture and have a greater appreciation of them, of all of the cultures.

00:00:51 - Also, we learn through the ways history is recorded in its forms of manuscripts through the speech itself, so first it was only speech and then they started writing things on manuscripts and that's how literature started and that's why it is important.

00:01:05 - The second question that Laura mentioned before was how does it influence identity?

00:01:09 - The literally analysis of identity is often done by the transposition of a character into a strange setting. As such literature is therefore particularly we suited as a basis for the study of cultural identities. So, almost in all poems or prose, we can find an identity. Thank you.

00:01:31 - Perfect. What you said was gone really true. And thank you, Illao, for that amazing introduction.

00:01:37 - Now, thank you for coming. Can I add something? Of course, don't mean it. There's something that

00:01:43 - Isabel mentioned that it's very, very meaningful. And I want to, I don't know, like to add something that is that leadership has the ability to expand our minds, so all our minds, our perspective, and it challenges to think critically and critically about all the world and all the things that are around us. So in that way, I think leadership really influences on our life and our identity. Thank you, Laude. I completely agree with the 12 views. You have very good points about leadership and how it has an influence in our identity. For that reason and as you should know every time that someone writes something is because they're leaving that or they want to change that situation that they are going through. So for that reason and as we're talking about North American literature I just want to make a little summary about the background of history of the United States of North American literature. So basically you know that before the Contas there were like native communities and more. Then when the colonies started there were two team colonies and around the 1776 the Declaration of Independence was wrote by do you know that important people were in the Meflanquins and there's important people that they're in Rosmore and Molten look for about that. Then around 1860 they were the civil war for the abolition of slavery imposed by Abraham Lincoln. In this time people used to write a lot about the current situation of the country, about segregation, about how they feel separated from the others, those difficult situations that they were going through. Around 1920 the economy was super good in that country so most of the leadership at that time tend to be happy and optimistic

00:03:32 - But 10 years before, more or less, it was the great depression about money.

00:03:39 - So people were sad, were disappointed, were poor.

00:03:42 - So let us share it's also related to that moment about what people used to think about that or what they would like to change.

00:03:49 - Then we have more historical things like in 1950 started the movement of those minorities like black people minorities.

00:03:58 - So we have important people that all of us we know that Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Margin

00:04:03 - Luther King, and this background is important because in this way we are able to see how current situation in our society affects the way we think and the way we write.

00:04:14 - So let's see what you think girls, about this.

00:04:17 - That was amazing.

00:04:18 - Venezuelans, I really don't love history, but in the way you show it was amazing because it was very clear and with different movements and stages that of course influenced on literature, which I considered important. And of course, if we're talking about literature, exactly North

00:04:37 - American literature, we have to know about the North American history. So for that reason was amazing. Thank you so much, Ana. So now let's continue with an important section in this podcast, girls, that it's about analyzing poetry. I know that we really love poetry. So my question is, do you know analyze poetry if i can start if if you guys agree i would love to share an analyze that i did of a prose yes of course please show us during okay so the prose that i chose to analyze it's called fence it was really written in 1985 by august wilson and it is a play it is written in prose and it begins in 1957 and it's developed over a period of time over eight years so until 1965. The place of action is of course North America in Pittsburgh where a black family lived and it shows how I mean the purpose of fans is to exchange within the african-american community and especially in the sub-sequent generation the obstacles that these communities have to handle the home and the relationships within the family members and kind of a little bit about white privileges so this it's a story about an

00:06:18 - African American guy whose name was Troy and he was he was a baseball player he was very good at baseball and then because he didn't have enough money he went to jail he spent 15 years there in jail and then he finally got married had kids but then is how he always regrets his way of how he was born his life because he really wanted to become a baseball player. So in this play that's called Fence, we have a beautiful metaphor that it's the Fence itself, because it symbolizes the segregation of black community, but also Rose is the spouse, so also Rose's desire to protect her family from the outside world. So as I said before, it was a horrible time for black people to live.

00:07:17 - Also we can find symbolism where Bono, which was Troy's best friend, observed that Rose once the fence built to hold in her loved ones.

00:07:28 - So as I said before, Rose wanted to protect her family.

00:07:32 - To Rose a fence is a symbol of her love and her desire for protection as a mom.

00:07:40 - It represents love and motherhood and familyhood.

00:07:46 - So that's the most big symbolism that I could find, the fence.

00:07:51 - Also, we have irony and imagery.

00:07:56 - There is a lot of imagery in the fence that Troy builds, because it symbolizes Troy separating his family and trying to keep them together inside the fence and protecting them and raising them correctly.

00:08:10 - However, it is ironic because the inside fence was supposed to be safe, but in the part of the play Troy gets with another girl and this girl gets pregnant so it becomes like the outside of the fence right because inside and outside of the fence it's not a very safe place to live anymore. Also we found a little bit of hyperbole there is quote that says when your die walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. This quote is from Rose, from Rose's monologue it's also hyperbolic because she describes Troy as filling up the whole house or the whole frame of the door and like with the figure in the painting filling up the page so it means that he wasn't actually so big that he could fill the whole house itself, but he had this big energy and self-esteem, so he really trust on himself in that moment.

00:09:16 - And that's why Rose says that he could fill up the house, not physically, but metaphorically.

00:09:22 - Wow, it's amazing, Issa, thank you so much.

00:09:25 - That was a really deep analysis.

00:09:28 - Thank you so much.

we identified the different literary devices because this is one of the best way to analyze poetry.

00:09:35 - I identified the literary devices. So now let's continue with a different example, with a different movement, a different era. So in this case, Ana, can you tell us what is your example please?

00:09:44 - Of course, thank you La Juanisa. Thank you so much for that recommendation. Now I want to read that prose. So basically, I had a poem for you. It's a poem that was wrote by this amazing girl whose name is Emily Dickensang and the name of the poem is I'm nobody who are you

00:10:06 - I'm going to read for you because it's super short and I want you to imagine the situation so the poem says I'm not body who are you are you nobody too then there is a prayer of us don't tell their advice you know how ready to be somebody how public like a frog to tell one's name the Live Long June to an admiring Bach. This little poem is amazing because we can find, as Issa just said, some devices. For example, we can find a simil, we have the simil like a frak. This is also a frak, it makes a reference of everybody. Nobody's gonna frak, it's around because of the noise that they do. So when she says it, it's making that relation. I just want you to realize that she wrote these texts at that time, not because she was super known when she were alive. Actually, nobody knew about her life because she used to be so shy. Actually, the person who published her poems was her sister and this is why we have to know a little bit about the history of the background of those beautiful poems because it showed us the time that she wrote that it was a civil war. So people were more interested about the war, politics, economics, social life, instead of how a burger fell at that time. So basically we have a lot of things that I would really appreciate if you look for it, but I want that law also can show us a different kind of text that has different kind of analysis. Yes, thank you so much Ana and Issa, so your poems were amazing. So in this case I have a poem too, but it is quite different because of course it's a different movement in a different era and it contains a little bit of drama. So now we're going to analyze a great point example of identity that was written in the 17th century during the Enlightenment era. So you have to have that in mind. This point is called

00:12:17 - The Seven Ages of a Man and was written by William Shakespeare. So now this one serves as a great instrument to reflect an individual's life and all its status. So according to the age, the author reflects on the needs and what makes this stage of life unique. So for the reason it's totally related to identity because our life is totally unique and according to our ages we are totally unique. So it is also an invitation to be aware of the opportunity that we have as living as being human beings. Yes. And also it's an invitation to enjoy and to be grateful for being able to live this step by step of long but rewarding process that is the life of short. So now let's analyze a little bit this way. This poem contains a great number of literary devices. Among them we have personifications, simile, metaphor, and all iterations. So for the reason if you have the opportunity to read this poem you can find the different lines. The first and the most important is that you consider that this point is it's a narrative of course and it's a structure it's free verse so now let's start in the first line we start this point with a metaphor and the first example is world is a stage that is our first example of metaphor continue with imagery that it's the last scene the last yes the last part of the point that says sense of feet sense of eyes sense of taste sense of everything it's reflecting about our senses as human beings. Yeah, so for this region it's according to the shyness and more of the volume. Yeah, and according to the oldest and the last part of our life as human beings when we are old. And the last part we have a simile in the line 8 and in the line 10. In this case in the line 8 and in the line 10 we have the examples cycle like a furnace. You can see we have the word like and after we have creeping like a snail. In in that way we have different samples of literary devices. Okay my people thank you so much for paying attention to be focusing this amazing podcast we hope you have learned a lot it was an educational podcast about North American literature and the human condition so now we just want to conclude this amazing podcast saying that this podcast gave us a clear idea of how literature shapes our lives as human beings so literature has the great advantage of dealing with social issues with war, love and in this case identity that was our main topic of the podcast. Also, leadership helps us to recognize ourselves as individuals, recognize how coordinated we are and analyze our role within society. Likewise, poetry, but we analyze poetry, poetry serves as a resource of expression that's important that you know it. It is different narratives and forms allows us to learn about our past, our culture, traditions, and significant events, as Anna mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the background. This is an invitation guys for you, listeners, to love leadership, poetry and to motivate yourselves to read. Thank you so much and see you in the next episode.

00:15:00 - Thank you. Thank you.